Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-08-01
HOME SAFEGUARDS.
The New House and Its Battiements-
Eloquent Sermon by Rev. e. r. Ollie.

The following Is brief synopsis OF ser
mon delivered in the Sixth-street NJ. E.
Church by Rev. E. R. Ollie, which is full
of good advice to young men. He chose
for his text:
When thou buildest new house, then thou |
shalt make a bait ement for thy roof, that thou |
bring not blood upon thy house, if any man fall !
from thence.-Deuteronomy, xxi, S.
The tops of houses in Palestine wer e,
and are, composed of sticks or poles aid
across horizontal rafters, and covered Nth
cement or strong plaster. The Mosaic. law,
from which my text is an extract ('mong
other humane regulations which, were
about 5000 years in advance of That age)
required that those fiat roofs should be
surrounded by parapet, or oattlement,
breast high, for in summer the roofs of the
houses were used by the family for PRAYER,
for retirement, the reception of friends and
as a playground for children, and without
railing around the edge of the roof,
life and limb would be endan-
gered. The principle embodied in
| this statute is that prevention is
better than cure, and that we are response
BILE not only for the harm we do, but for
| that which we might prevent, that it is
better to put up the barrier above than to
pick up the mangled form from the pave
ment below, better to pay for the railing
than to pay surgeon to set broken limb.
He who prevents a life from being lost
saves life. To prevent boy becoming
drunkard is better than to reform drunk
ard, though it makes less show in the eyes
OF men. Formation of character is better
than reformation. Most of our work for
| humanity begins after the mischief is done.
All our reformatory and penal institutions
are simply efforts to solve the problem by
beginning at the wrong end and working
backward. A railing on the roof is better
than surgeon and an ambulance on the
sidewalk.
To-day we are building character, build
ing homes,
BUILDING THE SOCIAL FABRIC
And the national structure. What battle
ments shall we build round our new house?
| Battlements of law and order, of public
opinion, of home discipline, of moral and
| legal restraint, Of religious influence. From
the high places in society and the State.
from official position and places OF honor
and trust, men are falling and being dashed
| 10 pieces. The other day young man fell
sixty feet through an open elevator shaft in
San Francisco. What anguish that Young
wife felt when he, who had given her a
good-by kiss an hour before, was laid at
her feet mass of bloody and lifeless CLAW
But how much sadder the sight when
young manhood is wrecked and innocent
girlhood blighted, and when ruined lives
and shattered regulations drag themselves
back across the home threshold to hide
Their shame and break mothers heart, or
when they rush, in despair and frenzy, to
murder and suicide to avenge and hide
their shame, as did that poor girl few
days ago. How far is society and the
home Irresponsible for such tragedies as
that, when youth and strength and beauty
are slain in our streets and souls are done
to death by sin?
1.-The first of the safeguards that needs
to be thrown around our youth is a happy
home life. The first duty of parents
should be to make home attractive to their
Children. When boy begins TO dislike
his home and seeks to excuse himself from
1t he has passed his first milestone on the
road to the bad, and for this dislike the par
ents are often responsible. Throw back all
the shutters of the best and brightest room
| IN your house for your children, and bring
INTO 1t music-books, innocent amusements
and good company and keep the boys and
girls at home. not by compulsion or force
but by making home the brightest spot on
earth to them, spot to which they shall
LOOK BACK WITH PLEASANT MEMORIES
In all after years. | never knew ANYBODY
young or old, who really loved his home 10
be gwen over to any gross form of vice
While the youth who takes more pleasure
IN the saloon, or street, or places of amuse-
must than at home, has his ticket punched
tor perdition. Especially is it important
| that our boys should spend their evenings
at home for it is the evening hour that
brings to them temptations and perils. The
days work IS over and nature Graves recre-
auon, and the evening is Satan's harvest
| time. Then he opens his innumerabe
doorways OF temptation and filings wide his
crlmsoned and chandeliered gateways to
sensual indulgence. So successful ere
these bats and traps for men. that if all
who were III Questionable places in Sacra-
mento last night were gathered together in
mass meeting its size would be appalling,
and many respectable homes would have
delegates in that meeting. After a five
years pastorate in San Francisco and three
years here am notsurprised that so many
young men are ruined. | only wonder that
SO many escape.
Fathers be careful how you trust your
sons with a night-key. If you know
where they are at night, it is WELL II you
neither know nor care you and their en-
ployers will
FIND OUT SOME DAY TO YOUR SORROW.
What young men earn during the dav goes
into their pockets, but what they do at
night goes into their characters Sacra-
mento Is as good place as any in which
to bring up children but l know of no
worse place in which to turn them loose.
The home, the home, is the fountain
whose waters, sweet or bitter, gladden. or
sadden the world. Paley said that in the
family are the rudiments of empire.
You can never raise the people above
their homes-they can never sink below
them. The pulse beat of the nation is the
omen OF the pulse beat of the nations
homes.
The ranks of vice are being recruited and
our prisons populated from goddess PRAYER
less, sabbathless, undsciplined homes, and
| the thing that is needed to-day above all
others for the advancement of true civil
cation and the preservation of n pure
morality, is family religion-Jesus Christ
| enthroned and enshrined in the homes of
our people.
But many of our Young men have no
| family life. Probably one thousand youne
men in this city are in hotels and lodgings,
without the restraints and refnements of
home life. The Y. NJ. c. A. does a noble
work for those housed but homeless young
men, but after all, as one said to me. A
| stag party of young men is not home. even
Ii they do sing gospel hymns"
But, my young friend, even that bachelor
| apartment of yours can be made "a home
| like place if you so will Secure ticket to
the public library and then bring into your
room such authors as you can afford to be
intimate with, and you may spend many
an hour in
COMPANY FIT FOR A KING,
| And in converse with the great teachers of
the race. Shun every book that stirs lewd
passion or that shakes your faith in your
mothers God. Some of our best educated
men never went to college, but they spent
, IN reading and study the time their fellows
spent in saloons and theaters, and few
books well studied expanded their little
room into university, and finally lifted
them over the heads of their idle compan-
ions to positions of honor and trust.
The nights that great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden fight;
But they, while their companions slept
Were toiling upward thro' the night
Fortune is said to knock once at every
young mans door; and, if he is not in.
fortune does not so TO the beer saloon nor
the baseball park to look for him. Don't
ask, dear young friend, to be eyerlastingly
amused. Life has its serious purpose. its
sober duties and grave responsibilities. 1t
| is the mark of a baby mind to be ever in
The quest OF mere pleasure.
SuDD0Sp Won have M to,,,a L,4 n 1865.